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Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey Comes To The Fore As Wales Look To The Future

After years of waiting for a promising young player to develop, Wales have perhaps discovered that young players, just like buses, often come all at once. Their 3-0 victory over Scotland was ample demonstration of the burgeoning potential of players coming through for the Welsh, and while there is a long way to go, as…

Pakistan tour UAE and Qatar to prepare for SAFF 09

A 15-member national football team accompanied by their UEFA-pro coach George Kottan has left for Dubai from Lahore in the hope of playing practice games in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, details of which are yet to be disclosed. Speaking to Dawn on Tuesday, Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Secretary General Col Ahmed Yar…

The Oldest Clubs in World Football

Although football today is a multi-billion dollar globalised industry which has spread its commercial influence to all corners of the planet, sometimes it pays to look back into the game’s annals and revisit the humble origins of what has now become the most popular sport in the world. In this article I look at the…

Football Rankings and Awards

We live in a world obsessed with superlatives, constantly being sold by marketing ploys promoting their individual items. Football is sadly no different, how often are we told that Cristiano Ronaldo is the World’s best player, only to be told the same thing about Lionel Messi the very next day. Club’s are no different, Real…

Official FIFA World Rankings

FIFA’s official ranking system for nations was officially introduced in 1992. Initially it was a rather simplistic system, in which a win gave a team 3 points whilst a draw gave the team 1 point. This created a number of problems, based mainly around the fact that it didn’t take into account that some countries…

Sponsored Post: Smokefree United helps you quit smoking and win footie prizes

Smokefree United is a club of fans who all want to quit smoking. Sign up and you too can get all the coaching you need to quit and win top footie prizes. There are plenty of great reasons for giving smoking the boot – like the difference you’ll make to your wallet and your body….

Ballon d’Or

Lionel Messi has won the 2009 Ballon d’Or, awarded to the European footballer of the year, after inspiring Barcelona to the treble last season. The forward was outstanding as the Catalan club won the Champions League, the Spanish title and the Copa del Rey. Messi beat last year’s winner, Cristiano Ronaldo, into second place by…

FIFA World Player of the Year Award

In 1991, some 30 years after the Ballon d’Or was first awarded to Sir Stanley Matthews, FIFA commenced the awarding of their own award. The FIFA World Player of the Year. The award uses a Borda Count system to tally votes. Simply put a Borda count involves voters ranking their candidates in order of preference….

FIFPro Player of the Year Award

Whilst the FIFPro player of the year award itself has a relativily short history (having only been awarded since 2005), the origins of the awards could feasibly traced back to 1898 and the formation of the Association Football’s Union in England. Whilst the AFU turned out to be unsuccessful and ultimately shortlived, shutting up shop…

UEFA Coefficients System

Think for a moment about the organisation of tournaments such as the UEFA Champions League or the European Championships. How do you decide how many teams are eligible for entry into each competition, when those teams should enter the competition or what about the fixtures of those competitions? It’s clear that without a ranking system…